Salmon are better than Sand

Happy Feet the vagrant Emperor Penguin gets treated at the Wellington Zoo. The image links to the zoo's Happy Feet Appeal Page for donations to support rehabilitation.

A few weeks back, a young Emperor Penguin arrived on the beach in New Zealand, thousands of kilometers from the normal range of the species. It turns out the penguin got itself into serious trouble by eating sand and driftwood. This is a fascinating behavior. The penguin was not insane or seeking negative attention, but a natural instinct triggered in the wrong environment. Although all penguins can extract drinking water from the sea by excreting the excess salt with special glands, Emperor Penguins take a shortcut to fresh water and obtain part of their daily requirements by eating snow. The lost penguin was thirstily gobbling up sand by accident. While this may sound foolish, in context it is not that strange. In Antarctica, Emperor Penguins may never set foot on dry land for their entire lives, instead coming “ashore” only on frozen sea ice (often covered with drifts of snow). So, anything they are standing on should be fair game for ingesting. Unfortunately, this system fails miserably in warmer climates.

Fortunately, New Zealanders have made a big effort to save the penguin. Veterinarians performed surgery to clear the sand from the penguins digestive tract, a salmon company has donated vast stores of fish to replace sand with food, and a snackfood company is collecting five cents per bag of chips sold to sponsor the effort to release the penguin back into the Southern Ocean once it is healthy enough.

Perhaps there is a lesson about the dangers that altering the environment have for penguins. We already know that Emperor Penguins need fast sea ice to breed successfully. It may be that they need it to function at all. If penguins are used to eating snow and are left without it, we could have many more “Happy Feet” on our hands and no way to save them.

March of the Fossil Penguins

written by Dr. Daniel Ksepka

This blog details fossil discoveries and research on the fascinating Sphenisciformes. The aim is to introduce the cast of fossil species (50 and counting), explore the evolutionary history of penguin bones, feathers and ecology, and explain how scientists learn about life in the past.